The Chicago International Film Festival may lack potential blocbusters, but there are other ways to measure success.

Tools

Once again the Chicago International Film Festival is a hodgepodge of movies assembled with no discernible point of view. If you walked into a well-stocked bookstore and grabbed the first 130 titles in sight, you'd have a collection very much like it.

Tools

For anyone interested in keeping up with film, Chicago turns into New York City for six weeks every fall. The embarassment of riches is frustrating--and virtually guarantees that a lot of important work will get lost in the shuffle.